oppn parties How The NCP and The Congress Cooked Shiv Sena's Goose

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October 17, 2026

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
  • Kolkata witnesses traffic snarls on the first day of the Durga Puja festival as revellers start pnadal-hopping
  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
  • Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, Neha Bora of AISA, student leaders and supporters ahead of a rally in Connaught Place demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation. The protest followed the detention and jailing of two CJP leaders earlier in the week over demonstrations at Jantar Mantar
  • The Reserve Bank of India is considering further monetary tightening to counter capital outflows and increase the cost of betting against the rupee, according to bankers and analysts cited by Reuters. The measures follow recent rate increases and steps to drain liquidity as pressure on the currency and inflation concerns persist
  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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How The NCP and The Congress Cooked Shiv Sena's Goose

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The NCP and the Congress have made a bakra out of the Shiv Sena. After promising support, the two parties failed to provide the actual letters of support when the time came. The Sena was led to believe that they would support its bid to form the government if it broke its alliance with the BJP. On Monday morning, with just a few hours remaining before the 7 pm deadline, Arvind Sawant, the lone Sena minister in the NDA government, resigned from the ministry, signaling that the Sena had made up its mind to ditch the BJP in order to fulfill its wish of having a Sena chief minister in Maharashtra.

But when the crunch came, the NCP and the Congress refused to fax their letters of support to the Sena. Hence, when Aditya Thackeray led a Sena delegation to meet the Governor in the evening, he expressed the party's desire to form the government but could not provide letters of support. He simply did not have the numbers. He said that the party was in talks with the NCP and the Congress and requested the Governor for two days' time to firm things up. But the Governor did not grant the same and promptly invited the NCP as the next biggest party.

Readers can see how Shiv Sena's goose has been cooked. It ditched the BJP because the latter was unwilling to concede the chief minister's post to the Sena. Uddhav Thackeray thought that the NCP and the Congress would support the Sena and fulfill his wish. But the wily Sharad Pawar had other ideas. He, with alliance partner Congress (Sonia Gandhi was never fully convinced on supporting the Shiv Sena), played hard to get as he knew that the Governor would invite it after the Sena bid had failed. Now, if the Sena supports an NCP-Congress government, the very reason for which it ditched the BJP will not materialize. There would not be a Shiv Sena chief minister.

As people in Bihar would say, chaubeji bann ne gaye chhabbeji, bann gaye dubeyji. It has been a huge embarrassment for the Shiv Sena as it has been outsmarted by the NCP-Congress combine. There was a time when the Sena tiger roared and Mumbai shivered. Times have certainly changed. Now, the tiger will lick its wound in a corner. There is no chief minister and no government. What is left are the broken strands of a 30-year old alliance and quite a few lessons in realpolitik.

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